Public Bill Committee

[Mr. Christopher Chope in the Chair]

Clause 6

Fees

Danny Alexander: I beg to move amendment No. 68, in clause 6, page 2, line 27, after ‘fees’, insert
‘to a person who has failed to pay an amount of child support maintenance’.
It is a pleasure, Mr. Chope, to serve under your chairmanship for the first time. This is my first contribution to these debates, but I promise it will not be my last. Having spent the last couple of weeks learning for myself the obligations of parenthood, I have been afforded a degree of time to study the evidence given to the Committee and the debates that have taken place so far.
Amendment No. 68 and subsequent amendments relate to the subject of fees and the potential of the new Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission to charge for its services. They are matters about which there is the potential for some controversy.
I note that at point No. 10 in his written submission, Professor Nick Wikeley said:
“The question of charging fees will doubtless be controversial”.
He went on to say:
“The obvious point is that charging fees is unlikely to be effective if customer service remains at current levels.”
We will come to that when we discuss a subsequent amendment.
With amendment No. 68, I wish to probe the Government’s intentions about the circumstances in which they intend to charge fees. The note in the evidence that was kindly given to Members in a folder in advance of our deliberations is pretty opaque on the matter. Things were not made a great deal clearer when I read the oral evidence taken during the Committee’s first two sittings.
In evidence, Lord McKenzie said:
“No decision has been made on charging yet.”
However, even from the evidence, the nature and purpose of the charging regime that the Government seek to introduce was fairly fuzzy and opaque. On the one hand, Lord McKenzie said that he did not wish to 
“force people—particularly low-income families—out of the system and prevent them from entering into proper and effective maintenance agreements.”
Hilary Reynolds thought that it was
“highly unlikely that charging would start before 2010”.——[Official Report, Child Maintenance and Other Payments Public Bill Committee, 17 July 2007; c. 12.]
However, that does not preclude it starting before that date, although the Government’s note on the matter is slightly clearer. Will the Minister clarify the timing on charging?
Although Lord McKenzie said that he did not wish low-income families to be penalised by charging, he also said:
“Clearly we would wish people to be incentivised to use private agreements...and therefore, I suppose, not to use the system unnecessarily if it can be avoided and if it is not appropriate.”——[Official Report, Child Maintenance and Other Payments Public Bill Committee, 17 July 2007; c. 13.]
If the purpose of charging is at least in part to incentivise people to make private agreements, the flip-side is that if the charging regime is pervasive it will serve to disincentivise people from making an application to CMEC.
The purpose of the amendment is to try to narrow the range of people to whom fees may be charged. Specifically—the Minister made this point in oral evidence—fees may be useful in cases when people such as non-resident parents fail to discharge their obligations, as the fee would be more like a penalty. The amendment suggests that fees should be payable by those who fail to comply with their obligations—in this case, by failing to pay child support maintenance.
It would help if the Minister made clear his intentions about the range of people to whom charges might be applied. Clause 6 leaves it wide open. Fees could be charged to any and all people who interact with CMEC in any way, whether parents with care or non-resident parents. They could be charged in a range of circumstances. It has been explained that the issue is not principally about cost recovery. None the less, a charging regime that leaves open the possibility that a level of charges might be introduced for all applicants, including parents with care, that is sufficient to incentivise private agreements—in other words, add a sufficient amount to disincentivise people from choosing CMEC as their first option—could be a boon to that type of charging.

Tim Boswell: As ever, the hon. Gentleman is making a measured case. However, does he agree that, even if we do not want to tie down explicitly to the text of the Bill any instructions to CMEC, it would be unfortunate if the charging regime were to be operated penally in any way? It is one thing to give a measure of incentive, but it would be another to depart from cost structure or seek to punish individuals who chose to use the service.

Danny Alexander: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. I agree with it in the sense that a charging regime must not punish people simply for their choice of interacting with CMEC. The existence of a child maintenance support system is a public good, so to charge people willy-nilly to interact with the service seems wrong. The amendment would make it clear that, in a certain category of cases of those who fail to pay an amount of child support maintenance—those who have gone through the CMEC system and have not complied with their obligations—a charge might be a useful additional incentive to encourage them to meet their obligations.
The Minister has rightly made it clear that the importance of the Bill is that it encourages those who interact with the child support system to fulfil their responsibilities. He has said continually that one of the major reasons for the failure of the current child support system is that many non-resident parents—mainly men—are not meeting their financial obligations in quite disgraceful ways. The amendment would allow fees to be charged in such cases, but it would exclude charging to be allowed in the generality of cases for all parents with care or non-resident parents.

Michael Weir: I am following the hon. Gentleman’s argument with interest. I am mostly in agreement with him, but I am concerned that the amendment might put pressure on people to enter a voluntary agreement that may not necessarily be in their interests if fee charging is allowed and they fail to enter a voluntary arrangement. I accept his argument when people reach the stage at which they fail to honour their obligations, but I am worried that such a proposal might become a problem at an earlier stage by forcing them into voluntary agreements that are not necessarily in the interests of one party.

Danny Alexander: Perhaps I have not explained myself clearly enough. In a sense, the hon. Gentleman supports my argument. A charging regime, as the Bill allows, under which charges can be levied on all classes of people who interact with CMEC, could serve such a purpose. It could put pressure on people to enter into voluntary agreements. I do not know what level of charges the Minister has in mind. If it is to be set at £100 and there is a £10 disregard, it could effectively be 10 weeks’ maintenance for a benefit case and a significant disincentive.
The purpose of the amendment is to say that charges should not apply automatically just because a person has applied to CMEC if the voluntary agreement had fallen through, for example. Charges should apply only when a person has been through the CMEC system and the non-resident parent has been asked to pay money. If, in such cases, the non-resident parent has failed to pay the child support maintenance to which he is obligated, charges could then apply. In other cases, they would not.

Michael Weir: I am not necessarily opposed to the amendment, but is there not a danger that the fees will become an add-on to the existing arrears? Does it necessarily help the parent with care to get the money? Will the hon. Gentleman make it clear that the situation in which the maintenance is paid first and the fees separately would only come into play after the parent with care has received any maintenance that is due?

Danny Alexander: I am grateful for that intervention. I intend to go on in the subsequent amendment, which I know that the hon. Gentleman supports, to make the wider case against the fees. I cannot imagine that any Committee member would disagree with the argument that the payment of maintenance should take precedence over the payment of fees. Will the Minister say whether that is the Government’s position as well?

Mark Harper: I want to pick up on one area that the hon. Gentleman referred to. In our evidence-taking sessions, we asked the Minister, Lord McKenzie of Luton, what split of cases the Government wanted to see going to the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission versus going to private arrangements. In that discussion, he confirmed that the Government had no intention of using the fee-charging structure to reach a particular target or split of cases between CMEC and the voluntary arrangements. He said:
“We want to use them”—
presumably the fees—
“to encourage people to make choices that leave them in a position that we and they believe is right.”——[Official Report, Child Maintenance and Other Payments Public Bill Committee, 17 July 2007; c. 20.]
That indicates that CMEC has no guide to the purpose of the fees. They are clearly not about cost recovery. That was ruled out in the evidence given by Hilary Reynolds. The Government do not appear to have a view about the number of cases that use CMEC versus a private arrangement. CMEC is not being given a steer about how to set fees or what the purpose of the fees is—in fact, it is getting no guidance at all.
The Minister needs to be clear about the purpose of the fees. If the purpose is not cost recovery, there must be some other point. One cannot separate setting the fees against the incentive or disincentive effect that they are going to have. By setting the fee, we are implicitly making a judgment about the extent to which we wish people to use CMEC. I do not think that we can separate those two issues. There is a fundamental confusion, which the Minister needs to address.

James Plaskitt: Once again, it is a pleasure to have you chairing our proceedings, Mr. Chope. I am grateful to those hon. Members who have spoken in the debate and for the points raised by the hon. Members for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey and for Forest of Dean, which I will try to cover in my response.
Let me begin by pointing out the importance of clause 2(1), which we discussed before. Any decision about fees that CMEC might make in the future has to be made in the context of the overall objective, which is clearly set out in clause 2(1). Any test that might be applied to a proposal to have fees will have to be run against that objective.
The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey raised the concern that the charges might become penal or that they might disincentivise people or produce undesirable outcomes. In that case, the commission will not be meeting its obligation under clause 2(1). Therefore, it is an important part of the test.

Tim Boswell: I do not wish to disagree with the Minister about that because I think that it is clearly what we all wish. Does he not agree that as a matter of administrative law, the commission as a public body will always and at all times have to act reasonably—it will not want to attract attention from judicial review—if it sets the level of fees at any level which could at least arguably be seen to be unreasonable as far as the individual is concerned?

James Plaskitt: That is quite a legitimate point. It puts further constraint on the commission’s discretion to introduce or consider any fee regime.

Danny Alexander: The Minister is being reassuring, as he is wont to be, which is—

Tim Boswell: Reassuring.

Danny Alexander: Exactly. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman.
It was clear from the evidence of the Minister’s colleague, Lord McKenzie, that one of the motivations behind the power to charge is in relation to incentivising private agreements. However, for every incentive there is an equal and opposite disincentive. How does the Minister intend to get the balance right? If private agreements are genuinely incentivised, how will he prevent the charges disincentivising people from going to CMEC when they need to?

James Plaskitt: I shall come to that after I have dealt with some of the other interventions.
The Government recognise the importance of ensuring that a charging regime does not dissuade vulnerable or low-income parents from applying to the commission in the first place. Indeed, I remind Committee members that the White Paper said that
“the clear burden of charging should fall on the non-resident parent and not the parent with care.”
We would expect any charging regime put forward by the commission to reflect precisely that. I remind the hon. Gentleman that any charging regime must first secure the approval of the Secretary of State. That will be followed by a further check on any proposal, which I shall come to in a moment.
Charges may be incurred for a variety of reasons. The intention is that the majority of them, such as penalties for late payment and enforcement measures, will fall only on non-resident and non-compliant parents. However, in a few situations, allowing the commission to charge a fee at an early stage of the process—possibly to both parents—might provide it with a tool to help it achieve its objectives, of which I reminded the Committee at the outset.

Tim Boswell: I thank the Minister for giving way again, but members of the Committee must be clear on this matter. He mentioned charges for late payment. We know from our constituency casework that one of the defects of the current arrangements is that money has been collected from the non-resident parent but for some reason has not found its way through the agency to the parent with care—for example, either an employer is delinquent or there has been an administrative glitch. Will the Minister assure us that CMEC will do its level best to ensure that no arbitrary charge is levied on those who are not being delinquent but who have merely been caught up in an administrative problem?

James Plaskitt: I am happy to give that reassurance. We are making the changes precisely to achieve that degree of improvement in performance and we have been making that stipulation for such circumstances.
I referred to circumstances in which fees might be applicable, and it might be possible to envisage a small application fee coming into the process, as is the case in a number of other child maintenance systems in other parts of the world. That might encourage both parents to consider whether a voluntary arrangement might be more effective for them.
Above all, we consider it too early to put a restriction in the Bill, as the amendment would do. I would not want to fetter the commission in any way at this stage, in terms of proposals that it might make in respect of charges. It is important to give the commission the option of putting forward proposals on charges and not to say that charges in respect of certain things cannot be considered. The details of any charging proposals that might come forward would be more appropriately laid out in regulations. That is because the commission should play a key role in finalising the detail, and also—the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey sought reassurance on this—because fees will not be introduced until 2010 at the earliest, and then only as clients move into the new system.
I hope that I have reassured the Committee that all regulations made under the clause in respect of fees will be subject to affirmative resolution; that is the second lock on the process. First, any proposals must secure the Secretary of State’s approval, then they must go through the affirmative resolution process, under which they would be subject to additional parliamentary scrutiny.
I hope that I have given hon. Members the reassurance that they sought on fees and that it is sufficient to encourage the hon. Gentleman—whom, incidentally, I must congratulate on becoming a parent—to withdraw the amendment.

Danny Alexander: I am grateful to the Minster for his response and final remarks. His reassurance has certainly satisfied me and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Danny Alexander: I beg to move amendment No. 84, in clause 6, page 2, line 27, at end insert—
‘(1A) The Secretary of State may only make regulations under subsection (1) when he is satisfied that the Commission is capable of providing a satisfactory service to parents and children in terms of its duties under this Act.’.
Although the Minister offered reassurances on the way in which the Government intend to decide how charges could be applied, a much broader issue needs to be raised in relation to the charging regime, and the amendment seeks to do that. It relates to the evidence that the Committee heard from Professor Wikeley, who said that the obvious point is that charging fees is unlikely to be effective if customer service remains at current levels.
The amendment seeks to establish on the face of the Bill an equation between the ability to introduce charges and the ability of the new organisation to deliver its services competently, something that has been sadly lacking from the current Child Support Agency regime. That was debated in earlier sittings, but I make no apology for returning to it.
I noted the Minister’s comments about morale among CSA staff in an earlier debate about improvements under the operational improvement plan. That is obviously important, and I would be interested if he were willing to lay before the House—perhaps in the Library—a copy of the recent staff survey that Lord McKenzie referred to, so that members of the Committee can see in detail the opinions of staff on the range of issues that are, no doubt, pertinent to this amendment and others.
Morale among CSA claimants, rather than staff, would be a better measure of the degree to which it is performing its functions effectively, although I do not think that I need to go through the evidence in detail.

Nadine Dorries: I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman’s comment that the morale of the claimants would be a good measure of effectiveness. As he said, the morale of staff is also important, but another good measure would be how often hon. Members have to use the hotline, should the hotline still be available when the new service is in place. I would like the Minister to reaffirm whether hon. Members will still have access to the hotline because, unfortunately, in cases of desperation, we need to use it frequently.

Danny Alexander: I hesitate to speak for the Minister on those matters, although I note that, in the evidence session, his colleague in the Lords, Lord McKenzie, made clear that the MP hotline would continue. Without wishing to speak for the Minister as a matter of habit, I hope that I have made that point clear. However, the wider point that the hon. Lady made is absolutely right. The amendment, which would establish an equation between the competence of the organisation and the ability to level fees, would allow a much wider range of measures to be employed. It is not simply a matter of competence.
On Second Reading, hon. Members on both sides of the House referred to the hard-working nature of the staff and the fact that many of them are talented, competent and yet are struggling under the weight of a system that has been incompetently devised. I am not sure that the new system will mark a huge improvement on that, but we will, no doubt, come to that as we work through the Bill. That point is important. The major reason why we are in Committee debating the Bill is that the current system has been such a hideous failure for so many of our constituents, and every hon. Member in the Committee will have had dreadful experiences with that at a constituency level. The Minister, in his closing remarks, seemed slightly firmer on the introduction of charges in 2010 than we had previously allowed—he made it clear that charges would be introduced in 2010 at the earliest. It would be interesting to know whether he intends to introduce the regulations in 2010 or whether he does not yet know. I suspect that he may say that that is a matter for the commission.
In any case, if the level of competence and administrative efficiency in CMEC and the legacy organisations has not improved, introducing charges would add insult to injury to users. For people who have suffered for many years from not having their maintenance obligations effectively dealt with, levying charges would be hopelessly wrong if the new organisation is unable to meet the higher standards set by the Minister. Because of that, I want to return to the questions that were raised about staffing levels in the organisation.
Significant falls in the number of staff are planned during the 18-month period that concludes next year. The Minister said that those reductions relate to the operational improvement plan that is currently being implemented, which he said has been through its peak phase and is now winding down. I would be interested to hear about any evidence that suggests that the operational improvement plan has been successful because it would cut to the burden of the amendment, which concerns the administrative efficiency and competence of the organisation.
From a constituency perspective, the Minister has been helpful with a particular case and I remain grateful for his assistance. In all too many cases that are less complicated and unique than that one, I cannot say in all honesty that I have noticed a great deal of improvement in the past 18 months. Other hon. Members may have had different experiences. In my experience, it is extremely hard to find out what is happening in cases that end up in the Bolton special case unit.
John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con) indicated assent.

Danny Alexander: I notice that the hon. Gentleman agrees. I remain of the view that, with the significant staff reductions that are planned, there is a risk that performance in the child support system could go from bad to worse. The Minister will no doubt disagree with that, but he ought to agree with the purpose of the amendment. He has regularly made the point that the creation of the new organisation is a major shift, not a re-badging or re-branding exercise. The reason why he presents it as a major shift is that he is trying to change the culture and operation of the organisation. If that is his objective, I hope that he will support and welcome the amendment because it would allow a mechanism for proving his faith.

John Penrose: The amendment would bring about an assessment of the overall or average level of competence. The hon. Gentleman made the point that if CMEC falls below an average level of competence, it would add insult to injury to levy charges. However, does he accept that the experience of the Child Support Agency has been that different classes of case pose different levels of difficulty? Therefore, measuring an average level of performance does not address the problems that people are experiencing because some classes of case are more likely to be swallowed up by the black hole that is Bolton. It may be necessary to table an amendment so that the assessment of whether charges are acceptable would assess not only the average level of performance, but individual levels of performance in specific cases. If CMEC falls below an acceptable level of performance, it may be necessary to think about reimbursing charges that might be levied on those specific occasions.

Danny Alexander: I am grateful for that intervention—the hon. Gentleman makes an important point. While it is not specifically within the scope of the amendment, I hope that the Minister will take it on board. In his earlier response, he made it clear that one option is for charges to be levied in certain categories of cases, rather than more generally.
Concerns have been expressed about individuals who use the CSA in a vexatious way in order to apply pressure to the other party, or other cases in which there is non-compliance. Those are precisely the sort of cases to which the hon. Gentleman has referred. They are often the more complicated cases in which things are more likely to go wrong in the administrative system, without the safeguard that he proposes. I hope that the Minister will respond to that, and particularly to the point about cases in which the individual has been let down by the administration and in which charges should either not be levied or be reimbursed. That is absolutely right.
It would be monstrously wrong for CMEC or the CSA to say, “We are going to levy charges, even though we have got it horribly wrong in your case.” Sadly, that is the experience of far too many people throughout the country. That is why Janet Allbeson of One Parent Families expressed in her evidence to the Select Committee her concern about the introduction of charging by saying:
“let us put charging on hold; let us see how the system beds down; let us see who is using the new system and why they are using it and then think about charging and how that fits into it. It is too early, and can just antagonise people and create unnecessary tension and aggravation.”
It is in precisely the sort of cases referred to by the hon. Gentleman that unnecessary tension and aggravation will be felt particularly strongly. In making a general assessment about the performance of the organisation, we must consider not only the amendment, but performance in specific cases when deciding whether or not charging is appropriate. I look forward to the Minister’s response to the important equation that we seek to establish.

Tim Boswell: I rise to reflect on the matter, rather than to reach a substantive conclusion, and I have a number of points in mind. The first basic point is that we would not be debating the Bill, if the CSA were doing its job at the moment. We know that radical change is required, and that change must be towards competence and satisfactory performance. That is self-evident and is no reflection on the individuals, who are doing their best, or on many of the people who pass through its portals.
As a kind of mind game—I suppose it is the type of game that one plays in a glide-path towards the end of a parliamentary career—I occasionally fantasise about the Minister’s objections. I will do that on the grounds that I may be more terse than he is. I do not advise him to accept the amendment as such, but I speak in spirit rather than in detail. We are delighted to have the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey back in Committee, all the more so as I now realise why he was away.
My first objection—I will be rude to the Minister for a minute—is that many of us are somewhat cynical about certification by a Secretary of State in any matter, whether it involves compliance with legislation on human rights or otherwise. The amendment would effectively require the Secretary of State or, more realistically in an individual case a junior Minister, to certify that there was a satisfactory performance.
My second point, which is more helpful to the hon. Gentleman, is that however good CMEC is, it is not the only party to the transactions. The matter depends on the compliance and behaviour of other people and frankly, one of the problems is that many parents who are absent or non-resident have no intention of complying, however hard we try. It is offensive to people, not least to those who are trying to care for their children, when that situation arises, and I fully understand the Minister’s wish to pursue such matters.
I have some subsidiary concerns. Capability is not necessarily the same as performance. Even if the commission is capable of performing a satisfactory service, it does not necessarily do so in every particular case. Similarly, it might deteriorate having reached certification by the Secretary of State on the back of its fees. Those are substantive issues.
The nub of the argument is what is a satisfactory service. We must expect the new commission to perform in a satisfactory way in the great majority of cases. Our concern, and the reason for the new measure, is that the present agency does not perform adequately in the broad mass of cases and performs execrably in a minority of cases. What is needed is a normal performance—a default function that works—and for proper attention to be paid to individual cases which, because of their category or an administrative glitch, do not work. Only then can the Minister claim success. The inference of the amendment, with which I agree, is that at that point, and on that basis, it is reasonable to start charging.
It is worth spending some time on certain issues: first, we should not be trapped by a date. As One Parent Families said in evidence, there should be a perception that everything is working and is in a stable state, and that the problems are finite and manageable. It may then be appropriate for a fee to be charged. Those are perfectly sensible criteria.
Secondly, there must be an understanding at that point that individual difficulties that arise—God knows, they arise with applications for passports, driving licences and so on—can be handled satisfactorily. I would have thought it self-evident that fees should not be charged, or should be rebated, when there has been a failure of service, especially when the service is generally satisfactory. The Minister needs to go a bit further in relation to compensation. Privately, I have always been a bit uneasy that the existing agency, faced with evidence of its failure in a particular case, tends to say, “We were right to check the 50 quid and tell the person it is a compensation payment,” which is not necessarily always appropriate. It is not as good as fixing the system.
The Minister needs to consider not only the return of fees but compensation, when appropriate. We touched on, but did not explore, the function of CMEC and its responsibilities to its customers in respect of its ability to be sued, for example. If someone had to make a private arrangement and it had been validated by a lawyer, that lawyer would be liable in respect of professional negligence and so forth. If CMEC is the broker of these arrangements, albeit the broker of last resort, it has an obligation to deliver properly.
We know exactly what the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey is arguing for, and it is a worthy aim not to rush into things and not to charge fees where there will clearly be continuing come-back. It is important that when fees are charged there is a good reason for it, and they should not be a loss leader. We should not regard fees as an excuse for not paying the maintenance, which must be the first charge on anyone who is contributing. There should be stability, and a proper regime for redress in cases of failure. I am sure that that is what the Minister wants to achieve, and it is the Committee’s duty to spend a little time encouraging him to do so.

Michael Weir: I want to make a few brief points on the amendment. We are here in the first instance because of the failure of the Child Support Agency and the point made in Sir David Henshaw’s report that a clean break is needed. However, I fear that introducing fees will add new complexity to an already difficult situation. The Bill states that the Secretary of State may make regulation to introduce fees, when he is satisfied that the commission is capable of providing a satisfactory service.
The Minister has already accepted that the CSA is not fit for purpose, hence the Bill. However, I draw a parallel with tax credits, when Minister after Minister stood up in the House and said that there was nothing wrong and everything was working fine, in the teeth of evidence from hon. Members on both sides of the House who had problem after problem with tax credits. Although I have every faith in the Minister, we need an independent assessment of when the agency is performing satisfactorily.

Tim Boswell: Would the hon. Gentleman like me to describe my discussions with my local welfare rights office the other day? We produced a precise contrast between the means-tested benefits, notably tax credits, which were generating a huge amount of casework, and the very small number of cases where there was an entitlement, such as to a pension, and where administrative issues do not normally seem to arise.

Michael Weir: The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. My point concerns the system and how we decide when it is working satisfactorily. We all agree that the CSA, despite the best efforts of most of its staff, is not working in a satisfactory manner, and there are many reasons for that. The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey mentioned the number of staff. There are obviously resources implications, as there have been from the outset, and there are IT problems. There is a host of problems, which has undermined public confidence and the confidence of most MPs in the CSA.
We all want CMEC to be different. We want it to work and to provide a better system. The priority must therefore be to get CMEC up and running, working well and enjoying the confidence of both non-resident parents and parents with care. I was interested in the Minister’s statement, which gave the impression that CMEC may be considering introducing charges from a fairly early stage. That would create unnecessary complexity and would lead to disagreement between parties.
I suspect, if I may be cynical for a moment, that the reason for charges is to encourage people into voluntary agreements or a standard form that may be available on the net. That is fair and well where parents agree, but in many cases parents cannot agree, and CMEC will become involved. Charges are not going to help matters in complicated cases where one parent is being very difficult. Whoever has to pay the charge, it will be another piece of grit in the oyster in trying to reach agreement between the parents—it will irritate and lead to trouble.
There is also the problem of the level of fees, on which there has been no indication as yet. I appreciate that that is a matter for CMEC, but unless the fees are on a staggered basis, they may not mean much to someone who is earning a reasonable amount of money. For someone on low income or on benefit, however, they may make a huge difference to the level of child maintenance.
Fees are a cul de sac that we should not go down at this stage. The better enforcement that is promised by the Bill is a better way of ensuring that those who are liable to pay child maintenance will pay it. Fees should be considered only once we are all satisfied through an independent appraisal that CMEC is doing its job and that it is making things better for parents with care and children.

Mark Harper: I have three relatively brief points. What assessment has the Department made of the relative cost of entering into private agreements? Clearly, if a private agreement is a relatively straightforward standard agreement that can be downloaded from the internet and entered into without taking legal advice, it will be fairly cheap. On the other hand a private agreement that meets the requirements of both parents as well as those of the children could be more costly. That needs to be taken into account when setting the level of fees.
If entering into a private agreement is relatively expensive and the fee is not set at an equivalent level, people will use CMEC instead of using private agreements. That will lead to a situation that the Government have said that they do not want, namely CMEC being the default mechanism. The other thing that is not really laid out is whether any fee structure that is set up will involve a flat fee, a fixed monetary amount, a means-tested amount or a figure linked to the income or amount of maintenance. What is the Minister’s view?
I have asked that because, according to the graph in the regulatory impact assessment showing the number of cases and the level of maintenance, the majority of cases involve amounts of money that are not very large, although they are a lot for the parent with care. If the fees are high enough to have any effect, they will be significant compared with the amount of maintenance in the vast bulk of cases, but very small in the smaller number of cases that involve a significant amount of maintenance. Does the Minister intend to structure the charges so that they vary according to the income of the parent?
My final point, which has been touched on by a number of Committee members, is whether any fee structure will be worth the candle if it is specifically designed not to be a cost-recovery mechanism. Given the complexity of the maintenance system in general and the amount of money that is likely to be collected in fees in this case, will it be sensible to have a fee structure, a charging mechanism and a method of collecting the money? Has the Department thought about the amount that will be collected in fees and the number of people who will have to pay them? If the fee level is low and the number of parents—with care or without—fairly small, it will not be worth the trouble of setting up a complex structure. We might end up with one of those governmental situations in which the staffing and running costs outweigh the amounts of money being moved around to the extent that it makes no sense at all.

James Plaskitt: Hon. Members have raised a wide range of points. I was going to reassure the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire that there is, of course, going to be access for MPs pursuing constituents’ cases, but she has gone.
The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey raised a number of points. First, he asked whether I could place the recent staff survey before Parliament. Yes, I shall be more than happy to do that. Then he spoke about staffing. He knows that we have increased staffing levels in the agency in recent years as part of the operational improvement plan to deal with a considerable legacy of issues and problems in the agency. A concerted effort is taking place during the three years of that plan to resolve those problems before we move on to the new commission arrangement, but this is only the first year of the plan. The agency, in common with other parts of the Department, has a mission to achieve head-count numbers.
We envisage that numbers will reduce gradually as we implement the head-count plan. That should take the numbers back, broadly, to where they were before the boost to staffing levels associated with the operational improvement plan. The hon. Gentleman should remember that if the OIP does what we expect it to do, a lot of issues will be removed from the agency, and as we move into the new arrangement there will be different levels of people coming into the statutory system. It will be for the commission, once it is set up, to decide the staffing level that is appropriate for it to run the services that it is deemed to have to run. It is important to understand that the current trajectory on staffing numbers does not presume decisions that the commission will make, and the hon. Gentleman should not do so either. The numbers that are published relate to the agency and to the head-count plan that applies to the Department.

Danny Alexander: The Minister rightly enjoins us not to make assumptions about CMEC staffing levels. Does that imply that resources would be made available should the commissioner and his board at CMEC decide that they need more staff? The Minister makes the point that one year into the operational improvement plan, staffing is on a downward trend that is expected to go through to March 2008. The reduction is significant. Does he have early evidence that he can give the Committee on whether, in that first year, the operational improvement plan has succeeded to the extent that a reduction of 2,000 staff by March 2008 can be justified?

James Plaskitt: Let me see whether I can reassure the hon. Gentleman on that with some of the results from the first year of the operational improvement plan. So far, 45,000 more children are in receipt of maintenance; a higher proportion of non-resident parents are paying or using direct maintenance, 61 per cent. of whom are on new schemes; the number of uncleared applications, which was one of the big problems in the agency, is already down by 31 per cent.; applications are being cleared far faster with 61 per cent. being cleared in 12 weeks, up from 53 per cent. before the plan; telephony is certainly improving; and the extra releases in IT are taking place to fix some of the problems inherent in that system. Those are encouraging results from just the first year of the operational improvement plan, which has two years to go.
With the operational improvement plan, we are focusing on the outcomes in terms of the agency’s performance, which is the important thing to keep an eye on. As the problems are resolved and as the IT releases go in, a lot less will have to be done clerically. That will facilitate a reduction in head count without jeopardising the continuous improvement in the performance of the agency that we are looking for.
The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey and others have raised concern about the situation in Bolton, and I hope that I can reassure them. Thirty-four thousand of the most complex cases in the agency were transferred to Bolton for a concerted drive to try to tackle them. That is a tough job, and I willingly accept that there have been difficulties in the early phase of the operation. I will not dwell entirely on those cases, but I will return to them in a moment. The fact that those 34,000 really tough cases have gone to Bolton means that agency staff who were dealing with them are free to deal with other cases, which is helping to improve performance.
We want to see results coming out of the Bolton mission, but it is early days. So far, it is administering £15 million in additional maintenance payments as a result of focusing on those problems. Again, part of the solution is getting the IT right, and there are further releases to come for the Bolton operation this year, which should help in getting on top of the situation.
The hon. Member for Daventry asked about the compensation scheme, which will continue essentially as it is under CMEC. However, it is open for CMEC to consider, in the light of its operations as it comes into being, whether it wants to make further changes. At this stage I envisage it taking on the existing compensation scheme.
The hon. Member for Angus asked, in connection with the amendment, how we will know how the commission is doing. He wanted to know whether we can assess its performance before it comes back to us or to Parliament asking to implement any fee charging scheme. When discussing clause 9, we will look at the reporting system and the annual report that the commission must make. There are amendments that we will debate, but it sets out the framework of how the Secretary of State and Parliament will have a regular check on how the commission is doing against the performance criteria in the Bill. Therefore, there will be a way of measuring how it is doing against its objectives. However, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the critical thing is to get performance, delivery to clients and enforcement right. That is what we need to keep our relentless focus on. That is the point of the fundamental change and the clean break that we are making with this Bill.
The hon. Member for Forest of Dean raised some interesting points about fees. He wondered whether behavioural impacts will arise from the structure of fees. I am sure that that will happen, and that is one of the issues that the Commission will have to think about, if it chooses to come forward with a proposal for fees.

Nadine Dorries: Will the Minister give way?

James Plaskitt: In a moment.
One of the things that we will want to see is its assessment on the potential behavioural impacts of any fee structure that it proposes. It goes without saying that we would not be inclined to support a fee structure that has detrimental or adverse impacts. The hon. Member for Forest of Dean asked whether the fee structure will be flat, varied or means-tested. That is entirely an issue for the Commission, so I repeat to him that any fee proposals that the commission comes forward with are subject to affirmative debate in Parliament, so they will get intense scrutiny before they are implemented. That will be the point at which we can look at the questions that he has raised, should the situation arise.
I shall give way to the hon. Lady, but first I repeat the answer that I gave to her earlier question, while she was out of the Room. She asked whether MPs will continue to have access to the systems to pursue cases. Yes, they will.

Nadine Dorries: I thank the Minister for that answer. I was trying to make a wider point, because he gave that answer in the evidence session.
With regard to the fee structure, I have a practical suggestion. Can the new scheme be given a six month run-in period while we see how it beds down before the fee-charging scheme is introduced later? I mention that because of particular cases involving fathers who are very difficult to track down. When such fathers are tracked down, it is very difficult to get payments out of them. I am worried that those people will disappear altogether. Could we not see how the system beds down, and then introduce the fee-charging scheme?

James Plaskitt: I am afraid that I cannot agree with that suggestion, for a very simple reason. It is important to understand the principle on which we are making these changes. We are moving to a commissioning basis in the system of child maintenance. I really do not want to fetter the commission in the decisions that it is going to make. I understand why the hon. Lady has said that, and I am sure that a whole host of suggestions about making various changes will be made. However, the more that we hem in the commission, the less clean a break it will be. That is how it has to be, and I want those decisions to rest with the commission.
As I have said, if the commission comes forward with fee-charging proposals, it will need the approval of the Secretary of State and an affirmative resolution from Parliament. It is not as if the subject is being lost from scrutiny and that there will be no opportunity to raise the points that the hon. Lady has mentioned—far from it. I want the initiative to rest with the Commission, which is the point of the change.

Tim Boswell: Although I fully understand that the Minister does not want to hamper or fetter the commission in coming up with any fee-charging scheme, or in the general discharge of its functions, would he mind if I put down a marker on the question of costs? The clause, as drafted, has a cost-related fee structure, but does the Minister agree that it is very important that CMEC at least gets a grip on its costs in individual cases, in particular categories, and at the margin in pursuing individual cases? Unless it understands that structure, even if it does not reflect it in the unit charge, it will not be able to manage its job or discharge the work efficiently overall.

James Plaskitt: I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and I potentially agree with him. I refer him back to clause 3, which we debated last week. It includes an obligation to the commission to
“exercise its functions both effectively and efficiently”.
One of the tests whether it is functioning efficiently is the way in which it spends its money and handles its costs. I agree with him, and the opportunity for us to assess that is already covered by clause 3.
I shall now return to the core of the amendment, on which the debate hangs. The amendment poses some difficulties, although I understand why it has been tabled. It would require a subjective test of the capability of the commission and of what constitutes a satisfactory service. Any view that the Secretary of State takes on those matters could be open to challenge, which would threaten the validity of any regulations then brought forward.
The amendment would potentially stop the introduction of fees until the new scheme is up and running, when a clearer assessment of the commission’s ability to provide a satisfactory service is possible. That would prevent the commission establishing fees as an integral part of the new scheme. That might be what the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey wants, but such fettering of the commission is not appropriate at this stage.
Let me add, however, that the Child Support Agency charged fees between 1993 and 1995. The regulations allowing them to be charged were revoked, partly because the service that the agency provided at the time was simply not good enough to justify charging a fee. The commission will have that experience in mind when it considers arrangements for any future charging regime and its timing. That will be borne in mind not only by the commission, but by Ministers, and Parliament will bear that precedent in mind if and when charging regulations are laid and considered under the affirmative procedure. Given those reassurances and reminders, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment.

Danny Alexander: We have had a good debate and some important points have been made. I should have referred to the experience of charging by the CSA in my opening remarks. The Minister rightly made the point that charging was withdrawn because of issues of effectiveness. Notwithstanding his assurances, I believe that the Bill would be improved by the amendment and I therefore seek to test the Committee’s opinion.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 9, Noes 10.

Question accordingly negatived.

James Plaskitt: I beg to move amendment No. 57, in clause 6, page 2, line 38, at end insert—
‘(3A) The Secretary of State may by regulations provide that the provisions of the Child Support Act 1991 (c. 48) with respect to—
(a) the collection of child support maintenance,
(b) the enforcement of any obligation to pay child support maintenance,
shall apply equally (with any necessary modifications) to fees payable by virtue of regulations under subsection (1).’.
The amendment clarifies the intention behind clause 6(2)(f), which enables regulations to include matters relating to the recovery of fees. The amendment is modelled on section 47(4) of the Child Support Act 1991. Fees will not be an effective tool if they cannot be enforced, which is why the clause originally said that regulations could provide for the recovery of fees. However, we felt that the intent of the provision might not be clear enough, which is why we tabled the amendment.
I am sure that hon. Members remember that section 47(4) of the 1991 Act specifically states that enforcement powers shall apply to fees. However, that section will be repealed with the creation of the new fees provision. Despite the reference in clause 6(2)(f), it could be argued that in its current form the new fees clause does not give the commission the ability to use enforcement powers to collect fees. That is not the intention, so for the avoidance of doubt I am moving this amendment.
The amendment makes no substantive change to the Bill. It simply makes it expressly clear that the enforcement powers available to the commission, including those set out in part 3, may extend to the collection of fees. However it is recognised that some enforcement powers are not proportionate to the collection of fees—I refer to measures that we will come to later such as the removal of passports, curfew orders, commitment to prison, and disqualification from driving. These powers are clearly intended to be used for the collection of unpaid maintenance payments. I assure the Committee that we do not intend to use them just for the collection of fees, and restrictions to that effect will be placed in regulations.
It is appropriate to set out the exact details in secondary legislation, as it will allow any restrictions placed on enforcement measures to be developed as an integral part of the charging regime to which they relate. However, I reiterate the importance we attach to ensuring that the measures are used appropriately. Members of the Committee will of course have the opportunity to scrutinise all regulations made under clause 6; again, they will be subject to affirmative resolution.

Tim Boswell: I do not want to cavil with the Minister’s intentions, not least when he is reinstating a piece of interesting Conservative legislation. However, one thing has changed. The amendment mentions
“enforcement of any obligation to pay child support maintenance”.
We are bound to focus on CMEC—a public body, albeit in a different form—and the obligations that it may impose. Does that power extend to any obligation that the parties may have undertaken in relation to a private agreement—one that has not been through CMEC—or to any other kind of obligation on the parties? I suspect that widening the means of collection rather than making it exclusive to the Child Support Agency may cause a slight difficulty.

Danny Alexander: I wish to make one brief point. The Minister made it clear that these sensible and proportionate provisions are necessary to ensure that the Bill operates as the Government intend. Under paragraph (b) of the amendment,
“the enforcement of any obligation to pay child support maintenance, shall apply equally...to fees payable by virtue of regulations under subsection (1).”
Will the Minister clarify whether using the enforcement powers to collect fees will apply only when maintenance is also being collected? For example, if someone has started to pay maintenance but for some reason refuses to pay the fee, can those enforcement powers, which are to be used for the collection of child maintenance, be used to collect the unpaid fee? I suppose that a fee could be levied even in cases where there is a nil maintenance assessment.

Tim Boswell: As we begin to tease out this issue—subsection (1) makes it clear that it is about the agency—I have it in mind that the agency may nevertheless be required to pick up on private arrangements in which maintenance is not being paid. The question is whether it can charge fees retrospectively, as if were, on that portion of unpaid maintenance that was missed before it became directly involved?

Danny Alexander: I hope that the Minister will explicitly rule out the circumstance described by the hon. Gentleman, as I am sure that it would be against the Government’s intentions as set out by the Minister. I am trying to understand whether the provision would allow the enforcement powers to be used to collect fees when no maintenance was being collected through the enforcement process.

Mark Harper: I want to make a brief point about the welcome intention that the Minister outlined when introducing the amendment. The amendment refers to the fact that the regulations to be used to collect fees shall apply equally, with any necessary modification. I listened carefully to what the Minister said about not using the enforcement mechanisms disproportionately to collect fees, so the use of the phrase “shall apply equally” seems to me to state the opposite intention. Given that that will be in the Bill, and the Minister’s comments will not, I wonder whether a different wording might be more satisfactory.

James Plaskitt: I shall reply briefly to the points that have been made. The hon. Member for Daventry is seeking to extend the policing powers of the commission into private agreements. That is not what we intend to do. The answer to his question is that fees will not be levied in respect of private cases.
The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey wanted to know whether enforcement powers could be applied just to fees. No, they could not.
The hon. Member for Forest of Dean wonders why the phrase “shall apply equally” is included. It is to ensure that the legal basis for taking action to pursue maintenance, is also available to pursue fees. Of course, it is restricted in terms of the powers that will be used in the way that I have clarified.
I hope, with those reassurances, that the Committee will accept the amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 6, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 7

Agency arrangements and provision of services

Paul Rowen: I beg to move amendment No. 38, in clause 7, page 3, line 14, at end insert—
‘(1A) Before any arrangements are made pursuant to subsection (1) above, the Commission must ensure that consideration has been given to how the specific arrangements sought will contribute to the Commission’s main objective of maximising the number of children living apart from one or both of their parents for whom effective maintenance arrangements are in place.’.

Christopher Chope: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 39, in clause 8, page 3, line 26, at end insert—
‘(1A) Before any authorisation is given pursuant to subsection (1) above, the Commission must ensure that consideration has been given to how the specific authorisation sought will contribute to the Commission’s main objective of maximising the number of children living apart from one or both of their parents for whom effective maintenance arrangements are in place.’.

Paul Rowen: This clause deals with agency arrangements and the provision of services. I know from our evidence-taking sessions last week and our debates that when CMEC comes into operation, greater use will be made of the voluntary and third sector to provide information services. I welcome that. The amendments seek to place in the Bill what we believe is the prime purpose of the agency and to ensure that that aim is not overlooked when arrangements are made to contract out and for different services and support to be provided by other bodies.
I appreciate that if money can be saved by delivering a service in a different way, that is in itself a laudable aim. But that pursuit of greater administrative efficiency should not be allowed to obscure the importance of delivering the service for which the agency has been set up. The Minister already knows of our concerns about the planned cuts. He has given reassurances about that, which he has repeated this morning. Nevertheless, as we begin to contract out and to use other services, we need to make sure that our prime purpose is to ensure better delivery of service. That is why I quoted the example of making greater use of the third sector in the provision of information services. That is an excellent example, which shows that locally delivered, locally administered voluntary agencies can be much more successful in providing support to parents who seek to make child care arrangements than an arm’s length agency that might not have sufficient staff in the locality to provide information and support.
We also accept, as the Minister pointed out last week, that the use of private debt collection agencies has brought results. We are not opposed to the use of private debt collection agencies. However, we have to be clear about our purpose in moving to the use of such agencies, and that purpose must be the provision of child maintenance and the welfare of the child. The amendment is designed to ensure that that remains the prime purpose for introducing any such contracting or agency arrangements.

Andrew Selous: I want to return to something that the hon. Gentleman said a moment ago on the commission’s objectives in securing effective maintenance. Does he share my regret that the phrase “and the welfare of the child” does not appear in clause 2?

Paul Rowen: We had a full debate on that last week, and I was disappointed that the Minister could not accept a reasonable amendment that would have set the agency up with that very clear purpose. This measure is not only about collecting money, but putting arrangements in place to ensure that children are properly cared for.
On professional and technical services, I want to make a brief comment about the provision of IT services, which has bedevilled the CSA since its inception. There are still two different computer systems in operation. I know that the Secretary of State said in February in evidence to the Select Committee that the Government intended not to have a new system. However, he also stated that they were happy with the arrangements with EDS and that there was a clear programme to ensure that the problems with the current system would be worked out. I hope that the Minister can update us on the improvements to IT services. I am still experiencing problems in my casework that are caused by the inability of the IT systems to extract the information that is needed.

Nadine Dorries: It is not only a case of being bedevilled by IT. Some cases are more complicated than others, as we have said before. In complicated cases, such as that of Mr. and Mrs. Jennings who are two grandparents in my constituency who are looking after children who have an absent mother and father, the IT system seems to fail completely. Then, going back to an earlier point, we have to depend on individual caseworkers. Can we have an assurance that the IT system will not be of the average standard used for average cases, but that measures will be built in to allow the software to deal with more complex cases?

Paul Rowen: I agree with the hon. Lady. She has quoted an example in her constituency, and all of us have cases in which the current IT system is not delivering. The Select Committee insisted that before CMEC becomes operational, the Department should provide the House with information on how the computer system will operate. We want an indication from the Minister about what will happen as CMEC is set up and what arrangements will be put in place.
We do not want to deal only with yesterday’s computer solutions—this is the point in the Henshaw report about the CSA having a fresh start and a clean break—because we want to know what arrangements are being put in place to ensure that any replacement or enhancement system can deal with not only the new method of operation, but, more importantly, existing cases. The Minister knows that in the previous sitting I went on about ensuring that historic debt is not forgotten. We must ensure—we need a comment from the Minister—that what he has got planned will ensure that the new systems will perform and that what has bedevilled the CSA in the past will be dealt with more effectively.

Tim Boswell: I have quite a lot of sympathy with the comments that are being made, and, sadly, assurances are needed in relation to IT systems. I have a different point, which picks up a dialogue about confidentiality that the hon. Member for Angus and I engaged in at the oral evidence session. I have no ideological difficulty whatsoever with either agencies or outsourcing, if that is the most effective thing to do.
One of the attractions of the amendments, which bears on clauses 7 and 8, is that they relate to the agency’s main purpose. However, I have concerns that information may leak out to other persons. If the Minister remembers the oral evidence sitting, we developed the argument that highly confidential information on income, which HMRC does not normally release, will pass from the Inland Revenue to CMEC in order for CMEC to do its job. I do not think that anyone in this Committee is seeking to overturn that.
It is extremely important that that information or any other material, such as medical submissions that appear on the file, stops at that point. The collection of such information is justified by the need to sort out maintenance, but not as part of a fishing expedition that becomes part of the public currency. Those people are private individuals, and we are all aware of the sensitivity of the cases. All that I am asking for is the Minister’s assurance that whatever obligations apply to officials within the existing agency will continue into the new commission and its agents or contractors. There will be absolutely no question of any dilution of standards or safeguards in terms of the privacy or confidentiality of the information relating to individuals.

Michael Weir: I want to follow the point made by the hon. Member for Daventry, which is the point that I also wish to make. Taking up what the hon. Member for Rochdale said about IT, we challenged in the evidence-taking session the flow of information, and I made the point that CMEC is fundamentally different from the CSA in that it will get its information from Revenue and Customs. At that point, I raised the concern about where that information will go after it has reached CMEC.
Hilary Reynolds, who is the civil servant responsible, said that one of the schedules includes all the available information gateways and that the gateways are fairly wide to allow CMEC to take and receive information from a wide variety of sources. This is a specific clause about the use of that information and the scheduling of various gateways. That is quite correct. The schedule in question is schedule 6, which states that
“Information to which this paragraph applies may be supplied—
(a) to the Commission, or
(b) to a person providing services to the Commission
for use for the purposes of functions relating to child support.”
My concern is that the contracting-out of services, specifically in clause 8, gives the potential that a lot of information coming from HMRC is going not to CMEC but to outside agencies. I made that point in the evidence-taking session in relation to the extent of contracting out—for example, will the calculation of maintenance be contracted out to a third party? There are limits on contracting out, including on when services can be contracted out. However, clause 8 does not set any limits, as far as I can see.

Tim Boswell: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there are also issues about jurisdiction? We understand that the agency, at least, is operating within British law. There is nothing, as far as I know, to prevent the new CMEC from commissioning services from different providers in another country where British law does not apply and where the provisions of the Official Secrets Act or the obligations of the civil service code, for example, are not binding unless specified.

Michael Weir: That is obviously a concern. I would be concerned if there were proposals to contract out CMEC services to overseas agencies—for example, many big accountancy companies operate multinationally. However, there is concern about the level of contracting out, and the amendments would set some controls on that.
Will the Minister say something about the extent to which confidential information from HMRC may be passed on? We all agree that information can go to the commission for the purposes of child maintenance, but where it goes once it reaches the commission is a different matter, which is a huge concern for many hon. Members.

Mark Harper: On clause 7, which deals specifically with agency arrangements for other public bodies or other parts of Government, I want the Minister to indicate what he has in mind. His colleague, Lord McKenzie of Luton, made it clear that CMEC was being set up as a non-departmental public body rather than as a Government agency, because it would be better if it were more at arm’s length and further away from Government. Since the clause deals with a number of the relevant functions performed by other parts of the Government, I am curious whether the power was included as a general power in case it was required, whether at this stage the Department had any specific thoughts about how it may want to deal with that—what bits of Government CMEC may want to use—or whether it was included just in case to allow future flexibility.
We will be able to discuss the two points about IT contracting when we discuss new clause 13, which has been tabled by me and my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire.
The information control addressed by amendments Nos. 38 and 39 is important. As the hon. Member for Angus has said, we touched on that in the evidence session. The relevant schedule is wide and permits information to be passed. When we talk about that schedule in due course, we will want to have some controls on where the information can go and on the responsibility that CMEC would retain for ensuring that that it was handled securely under British law.

James Plaskitt: I feel that the debate on clause 7 has strayed significantly into clause 8 as well, but provided that you permit me, Mr. Chope, I will respond to all the points that have been raised.
The hon. Member for Rochdale asked whether I could provide an update on fixing the IT. Clause 7 does not relate to the IT situation, but seeing as it has been mentioned, I will see to what extent I can reassure him. We are all familiar with the IT problems in the agency, which have bedevilled it pretty much from the outset. I do not want to go back over the history of how the IT was acquired, because that would not add much to our proceedings. However, suffice to say that the problem has been there from the beginning.
When we thoroughly assessed the IT situation in the agency to find out what was wrong, we discovered 506 defects in the system—that is all—which is a seriously large number. Those had to be graded into those of real significance, which undermined the efficiency of the organisation, and relatively minor defects. We decided, sensibly, to target the fundamental, systemic defects in the system first to try to get them fixed; 219 of them have been fixed since June, the date of the last report on IT status. That leaves a significant number of defects still to be remedied, but those that are left are minor. Those that were far more detrimental to the operation of the system were the focus of our priorities and have largely been resolved.
A major upgrade will introduce enhanced functionality throughout the agency’s IT system by the end of the year and will resolve a number of problems, as I shall explain. We will implement IT changes to support the agency’s new operating model that allocates cases to appropriately skilled case workers and teams to progress those cases, which will certainly be a result. We will implement a more effective telephone call routing strategy that is aligned to the new operating model, which should improve the response to clients on the phones. We will also implement a number of IT fixes that will prevent cases from becoming stuck in the agency’s computer system, which has given rise to many problems in all hon. Members’ constituencies, and provide improved system-produced key customer communications, a matter that was raised in earlier sittings.
Enhancements to the finance system functionality will be introduced in 2008-09, which will improve the system’s ability to collect debt and process all financial transactions. The agency is working closely with EDS, the main supplier, with the aim of ensuring that all cases will be technically recovered by the end of March 2008. The agency will ensure that any operational or remedial actions are taken on cases following technical recovery by March 2009. In view of these plans, all current cases should be unstuck by the end of March 2009 at the latest. I hope that I can reassure the hon. Member for Rochdale that, to coin a phrase, a lot has been done, but there is a lot still to do in respect of fixing the IT system.
The hon. Member for Daventry asked about confidentiality and I can assure him that the confidentiality safeguards will not be diluted. They will apply to any agency carrying out a function on behalf of another in exactly the same way as they do to the commission itself. The hon. Member for Angus strayed on to clause 8, but I will try to reassure him that any supplier that has access to sensitive information in the course of carrying out the commission’s functions will be subject to exactly the same restrictions on the use of that information as the commission’s employees. Provisions to govern that matter will be enshrined within the associated contracts.
Clause 2 provides the commission with a single overarching objective: to maximise the number of effective maintenance arrangements in place. I do not fundamentally disagree with what the hon. Member for Rochdale sought to achieve by tabling the amendment, but I hope to persuade him that provisions that will have that effect are already in the Bill.
The functions that the Bill confers on the commission and the powers that it is given to carry them out have the common purpose of enabling the commission to achieve its objective. For any functions that relate to child maintenance, the commission already has a duty to consider its objectives. Indeed, that is made absolutely clear in clause 2(3), which states:
“The Commission shall aim to pursue, and to have regard to, its objectives when exercising a function that is relevant to them.”
It is therefore clear that the commission must already have regard to its objectives when considering whether its functions should be carried out by another provider. It is worth noting that clause 7 also makes it possible for the commission to carry out functions of other Departments and public bodies, and for each to provide services for the other.
I think that the hon. Member for Forest of Dean was anxious about scope, and I shall now deal with that point. It might not always make sense for the commission to enter into arrangements or to perform functions with a view to its main objectives. The commission’s works sit within and are closely linked to a number of other areas of government. As such, there might be situations when the commission is best placed to carry out a particular task, even if that task does not contribute directly to its objectives. With the increasing momentum for work to be joined up across government, I think that hon. Members will agree that that should be encouraged.
We should also consider the example of Northern Ireland when looking at the context of clause 7. Although child support in Northern Ireland is a devolved matter, the IT systems provided by the British CSA are used at present. That makes economic sense, given the small size of the Northern Ireland CSA caseload and that its child support system is based on GB’s child support system. Wider government success and efficiency depend on such arrangements being possible, even when they do not contribute directly to the aims of the individual body.
I suggest that the amendment would, on the one hand, simply repeat a requirement that is already provided for elsewhere in the Bill and, on the other, prevent the commission from contributing to and benefiting from wider initiatives for joined-up government. I therefore hope that the hon. Member for Rochdale will agree to withdraw the amendment.

Paul Rowen: I was interested in the Minister’s comments, particularly those that related to our earlier proposals on using HMRC to collect some of the maintenance. In view of that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 8

Contracting out

Mark Harper: I beg to move amendment No. 99, in clause 8, page 3, line 26, at end insert
‘, except for functions relating to collection and enforcement exercised under sections 19 to 28 of this Act.’.
The amendment would limit the scope of contracting out under clause 8. At the moment, clause 8 will enable any function of the commission to be contracted out, and I think that it would be inappropriate for certain functions to be contracted out to private organisations. The specific area that the amendment would prevent from being contracted out is the collection and enforcement powers that are specifically in clauses 19 to 28. In a moment, I will go through each of those in turn to explain why I think that contracting out would be inappropriate.
I want to say at the beginning that we very much support tough enforcement and collection powers. Indeed, it is specifically because the enforcement powers are very tough and robust that it would be inappropriate for them to be executed by an organisation to which they had been contracted out. Because they are tough and powerful, they should be exercised by only CMEC itself. It is worth saying that some functions should remain properly within the purview of the public sector and not be contracted out. 
The first few clauses about which we are concerned—clauses 19 to 22—relate to collection. I do not want to go through the deduction of earnings orders at the moment because we will have a chance to discuss them later. Although the broad principle of allowing CMEC to take money and apply for deductions of earnings is correct, it is not a power that I would be comfortable having contracted out to a private company or organisation, as that would allow them to seek orders to take money directly from someone’s earnings.
A number of the first few clauses to which the amendment refers relate to such collection mechanisms, be they deductions from earnings, or some lump sum deduction orders. In some senses, however, those are the least objectionable issues. My main concerns about clauses 19 to 28 relate to some of the rightly tough enforcement mechanisms. Clause 25, on the disqualification from holding or obtaining travel authorisation, specifically gives the commission the power to make an order without even having to get the permission of a court. It will be allowed to make an order and to take away a person’s travel documents. That is a tough power, and it is not appropriate for the commission to contract it out and allow others to carry it out on its behalf. Given that the commission has to take into account whether a person needs travel authorisation to earn a living, it is a judgment that the commission should properly have to make, not simply contract out.
When the Minister was talking about the use of important powers to collect fines, he recognised that some of the powers would be disproportionate for that purpose. For the same reason, it would be inappropriate for the commission to contract them out.

Tim Boswell: Has my hon. Friend noticed the concern expressed by several hon. Members about practices such as wheel clamping in private car parks, where some of the charges are quite inappropriate or inordinate? CMEC would issue a pretty full and possibly unduly detailed contract to preclude such a thing simply under contract law. I suspect that the Minister will give that type of assurance.

Mark Harper: My hon. Friend makes a good point. In relation to the specific example that he raised, many of us know from constituency casework that private companies can have tough powers to take enforcement measures that can be used disproportionately. The remedies available to individuals and the Members of Parliament acting for them are limited—far more so than they would be if they were dealing even with a non-departmental public body, with recourse at some stage to a Minister.
The applications for curfew orders under clause 26 are potentially very serious. Admittedly, there is a safeguard that the order must be made by a court, but, again, it is not appropriate for the commission to contract out to another organisation to seek from a court an order to limit a person’s liberty, a breach of which could result in imprisonment.
Similarly, clause 27 gives the commission the power to apply to a magistrates court for a warrant committing someone to prison if they have failed to pay the amounts that they owe. We might think that that penalty is appropriately tough, but given its very toughness, a private sector organisation should not be allowed to seek to have an individual imprisoned. That power should properly be exercised by a public body with the appropriate levels of accountability. The public would not be happy to see it contracted out.
Tough enforcement will potentially be one of CMEC’s weapons, whether or not it has to use it, when trying to change the culture to one of compliance. Apart from the principled arguments that I have been making, a danger of contracting out is that the inappropriate use of enforcement powers might drag all the enforcement mechanisms into disrepute—it would not need many inappropriate uses; one might be enough.

Stephen Hesford: Does the hon. Gentleman consider running a private prison to be more onerous and exacting than exercising those powers? Contracting out to private prisons that operate such systems has happened for a very long time.

Mark Harper: The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, but it is rather outside the scope of the Bill. We are talking about this Bill, not whether such things take place elsewhere.

Anne McGuire: That is not a very good answer.

Mark Harper: It is a perfectly good answer. We are talking about this Bill, not another Bill, or another set of arrangements. We can talk about such things in due course in another forum, but I am talking about this Bill. I am being quite frank. It would not need very many examples of organisations misusing these powers to bring the powers into disrepute and to damage the reputation of the commission. That would damage its ability to use the powers, quite properly, to enforce maintenance arrangements.

Andrew Selous: An answer to the question about the prison system raised by the hon. Member for Wirral, West is that no one is sent to prison without going through the court system, which is part of the Ministry of Justice. Part of what my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean is talking about is the removal of passports, which is done under an administrative procedure, not a judicial one. He is therefore absolutely right to make that distinction.

Mark Harper: My hon. Friend makes a very good point. One issue that I have not referred to is that without my amendment, the commission will have the power to contract out the making of administrative liability orders. Again, the commission can make those orders without going to a third party—a court—to have them granted.

Stephen Hesford: The hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire has come to the aid of the hon. Member for Forest of Dean, but anyone who knows about running a prison knows that within those four walls there are a lot of exacting administrative judgments in terms of discipline and other enforcements. Those judgments are delegated within the four walls of that private prison, so I repeat my question: does the hon. Gentleman believe that running a private prison is more or less onerous than running these measures?

Christopher Chope: Order. The scope of the Bill is pretty wide, but it does not extend to that matter.

Mark Harper: As I said in my response, we are talking about this Bill. Part of what I am saying relates to the arrangements. I suspect that these measures are very onerous. Therefore, were the commission to contract them out, the complexity involved and the control that would have to be exercised to ensure that the powers were properly used would frankly make contracting out rather pointless. If the commission has to put those very tough arrangements in place, it may as well do the work itself.

Tim Boswell: Will my hon. Friend accept from me, as somebody who’s constituency contains two privately run penal establishments, that the proceedings—including the administrative ones—in such prisons are crawled over at all times by the Home Office monitor? A similar level of control or intervention would therefore be appropriate if there are penal or quasi-penal powers in the case of CMEC.

Mark Harper: I thank my hon. Friend for that helpful intervention Without wishing to stray outside the confines of the Bill, there is nothing in the Bill that would set up a similarly exacting scrutiny function to ensure that these powers will be properly used by an organisation that they are contracted out to. If the Minister wants to retain the powers to contract out in the Bill, he will have to reassure us that there will be some tough enforcement powers. There would need to be a suitable exacting scrutiny function conducted not by CMEC, but by somebody outside the organisation to ensure that those powers were being used appropriately.
We can obviously talk about the specific powers in more detail, when we get to those sections of the Bill, but a cursory look at them shows that they are not the sort of powers that we would necessarily want CMEC to be able to contract out. As the Minister has already mentioned, CMEC would have to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of contracting out. Given the enforcement powers that would be needed to secure compliance, the complexity of contracting them out outweighs any efficiency and benefit that could be derived. Therefore, when we consider contracting out, it would be sensible to narrow the scope.
When we discussed amendment No. 39, other hon. Members wanted to ensure that contracting out was limited specifically to help the main objective of the Bill. On this amendment, I am keen that, where appropriate, tough enforcement powers are used to secure compliance. However, there is an issue of principle, which is who should use those powers. I fear that inappropriate use will damage the commission’s ability to enforce them.

Danny Alexander: I have a few brief comments to add. I share quite a lot of the objectives of the hon. Member for Forest of Dean, but I am not convinced that his amendment will fulfil the things that he said in his remarks. He said, and I think that he was right, that in relation to the child support and child maintenance system, the commodity of trust is in short supply. Part of the burden of his argument, which I agree with, is that it will only take a few mistakes by an organisation to which the relevant powers have been contracted out to undermine the precious little trust that there is. The Minister hopes that trust in CMEC will accumulate as it begins to demonstrate its competence, but I hae ma doots about that.

Anne McGuire: Translate it into English for them.

Danny Alexander: I greatly doubt that that will happen.

Michael Weir: The hon. Gentleman gives in too easily.

Danny Alexander: I believe in the Union and the free flow of debate and information between Scotland and the rest of the UK. That is definitely outside the scope of the Bill, Mr. Chope, and I shall quickly move on.
The hon. Member for Forest of Dean is trying to make a distinction, which his amendment does not, between taking and implementing decisions. I agree with him 100 per cent. No contracted-out private organisation should be responsible for deciding whether an individual goes to prison. However, whether we like it or not, privately run prisons exist, to which people will be sent to complete their sentence. No private organisation should have the power to take away someone’s driving licence or to decide whether to subject someone to a curfew.

Michael Weir: I have some sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s view, but there is a difference between sending someone to prison—I agree with that—and removing passports and other identity documents, for which there is administrative action. The implications would be very serious if—God forbid!—we were to end up with an identity card. I wonder, therefore, whether there is a problem with not only prison, but administrative action. The passport is a state document that allows someone to travel, and surely only the state should have the right to take it away.

Danny Alexander: When we consider clause 25, we will have a proper debate about whether that should be an administrative power or one that is enforced by the courts. In that instance, I think that I would be on the hon. Gentleman’s side.

Tim Boswell: In an effort to assist the hon. Gentleman, I would like to make two points. A passport remains at all times the property of the state. Conversely, I would invite him to spend a moment or two over the summer looking at the case of Sir Frederick Crawford, whose passport was removed by the Wilson Government in the late 1960s. It is an example of arbitrary action, and even from a long distance, I remember the matter to this day as an example of the bad practice that we seek to avoid.

Danny Alexander: On the hon. Gentleman’s first point, I do not wish to stray into a debate about clause 25 and how that power should work. We will have plenty of time to do that at the appropriate moment. On the latter point, I shall seek his advice after the Committee about my summer reading list, so that I can become acquainted with that case, which sounds very interesting.
I broadly agree with the hon. Member for Forest of Dean with regard to the powers relating to passports and driving licences in prisons. One of the clauses relates to administrative liability orders, and I hope that in due course we will have a debate about whether they should be an administrative power. None the less, if the clause is accepted and administrative liability orders become a feature of the new system, I share that view of the hon. Member for Forest of Dean that decisions about those orders should be a matter for CMEC. However, is he then saying that the enforcement of that liability order should not be contracted out?
I agree with one of the points that the Minister has made—he has made only a limited number of points with which I agree. For example, during last Thursday’s sitting, we noted that private debt collection agencies have been used by the CSA relatively recently and that they have already pulled in some £3 million of outstanding debt. The fear of private debt collection agencies among non-resident parents has proven to be a powerful tool in encouraging them to come forward, merely on the basis of that threat. I am concerned that if we leave out the clause relating to liability orders, it would stop the use of contracted-out organisations for the enforcement of decisions that should properly be taken by CMEC.

Mark Harper: The hon. Gentleman makes two good points. I drew up the amendment specifically to refer to collection and enforcement powers so as not to damage any existing powers. The second reason is that, as currently drafted, the Bill does not have any restrictions at all on anything. The Minister may consider that my amendment goes a little too far, but given the broad level of agreement that he has achieved on most of the Bill, I would like him to acknowledge that this provision’s scope is far too wide and needs to be narrowed. If he does not do that, while my amendment may not be 100 per cent. perfect, it is an improvement on the Bill.

Danny Alexander: I hope that the Minister will make it clear in his response that it is not the Government’s intention for functions relating to decision taking under the clauses to be contracted out, although their implementation may be. Further to what the hon. Member for Forest of Dean has said, I would like to make a broader point in the hope of staving off a clause stand part debate.

Michael Weir: The hon. Gentleman has drawn a distinction between decision making and enforcement. However, it will still be up to whoever is contracted out to decide on what basis or how enforcement action will be taken. I am not sure that it is possible to make that distinction. CMEC might wish to enforce something and pass the case to a collector, but once it is in the collector’s hands, the method of enforcement becomes a matter for the contracting party. I am not sure that there is an exact distinction.

Danny Alexander: The broader point I wanted to make is relevant to that intervention. The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Stirling, and I were members of the Committee that discussed the Welfare Reform Act 2007, where we had a debate about contracting out. One of the important assurances that she offered, and I hope that her ministerial colleague will do likewise, was to make it clear that provisions in relation to human rights and the Human Rights Act 1998—the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 is also important in this context—will fully apply to any or all agencies to which the functions are contracted out.
I agree with the point made by the hon. Member for Angus, but I hope that the methods that might be used by a contracted-out agency would be restricted by the contract that it has with CMEC and by the provisions in the two pieces of legislation to which I have referred. Some of the more unpleasant methods of collection could be seen as being carried out on behalf of an arm of the state. That could involve a breach of an individual’s human rights, which would be a very serious constraint, compared with the way in which some of those organisations operate in the private sector. I hope that I have provided some reassurance. None the less, the Minister needs to respond to the burden of the argument, albeit that Liberal Democrats have doubts about the framing of the amendment.

James Plaskitt: The amendment moved by the hon. Member for Daventry would restrict the commission before it is even set up and running. He is trying to chip away at the range of options that is available to it. I resist his amendment because it begins to gnaw at the basic principle of moving to a commissioning arrangement. However, I hope that I can reassure him that the necessary safeguards are in place to prevent abusive use of the powers that he is talking about.
All the safeguards that would apply to CMEC, if it were doing any of the relevant things, will apply in the same way to any other contracted party carrying out functions on an agency’s behalf. I did not hear the hon. Gentleman object to any of the safeguards in place in respect of CMEC, so I am not sure why he does not understand that those also apply to anybody contracted with CMEC to carry out functions. Exactly the same safeguards and rights of appeal are in place as would be if the commission were carrying out a function.

Tim Boswell: I am grateful for that specific assurance. Given the concern in this place about persons financed by local authorities in private care homes not being able to access human rights legislation, however, can the Minister specifically confirm that, in relation to any contracted-out functions of CMEC, the provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998 and of equalities legislation—going rather wider than disability discrimination—will be applicable?

James Plaskitt: Yes, I can. I maintain that we must equip the commission with the key tools and abilities that it will require to make child maintenance provision in this country a success, which is what we all want. We must ensure that it is able to work with the voluntary and third sector groups and with those with expertise in managing and collecting owed money. That is why clause 8 enables functions to be contracted out if the commission considers it appropriate. However, the commission will retain ultimate accountability for any functions it chooses to delegate.
Sir David Henshaw recommended that the new body should be set up essentially as a commissioning body. We agree that we must enable the commission to carry out its functions as effectively and efficiently as possible, as enshrined in the Bill. That will include benefiting from the skills and experience of external providers. Preventing the commission from contracting out the collection and enforcement powers contained in the Bill between clauses 19 and 28 could have a significant impact on the extent to which it is able to operate effectively and efficiently. If that were done, we would in effect, as I have said, be tying its hands before it even gets going.
I reassure hon. Members that contracting out functions has no effect on the rights of individuals to appeal against decisions. Individuals will retain the same right of appeal against decisions, regardless of whether the commission or another provider makes the day-to-day decisions. Restrictions on the use of personal information are the same, regardless of who is doing the work. In respect of the example that was mentioned—moving to withdraw a passport, for example, for administrative reasons—the decision is appealable in a magistrates court, and the rights of the individual concerned are exactly the same whether that is done by the commission or a contracted party.
We recognise that, in contracting out its functions, the commission will need to ensure that providers deliver high-quality services and high standards of decision making, including all those relevant to enforcement. That can be achieved through careful consideration of the contract terms and rigorous contract management. It will be for the board of CMEC to ensure that that happens. Building the capacity and capability to manage contracts must come before any large-scale contracting out is undertaken, otherwise the commission would be failing in its important, enshrined statutory duty to operate efficiently and effectively.
The commission will, under the range of provisions by which it is accountable to the Secretary of State, have a duty to report on standards of decision making. It will also be required to publish an annual report detailing all activities undertaken in that financial year, including the extent to which it has relied on its power to contract out. The Bill provides for all enforcement powers to have intrinsic safeguards, whoever operates them. For example, only a court can make a curfew order, whoever is carrying out the enforcement function. I hope that I have given the hon. Gentleman the reassurances that he seeks and that he will withdraw the amendment.

Mark Harper: I have listened carefully to the Minister and I am happy to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 8 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 9

Annual report to Secretary of State

Andrew Selous: I beg to move amendment No. 10, in clause 9, page 4, line 32, after ‘on’, insert ‘section 7(1) and’.

Christopher Chope: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:
No. 11, in clause 9, page 4, line 32, at end insert
‘; and, in respect of each authorisation under section 8(1), details of the body to whom the functions of the Commission have been delegated and their performance in contributing to the Commission’s objectives.’.
No. 9, in clause 9, page 4, line 32, at end insert—
‘(e) the number of children who live apart from one or both of their parents who are eligible for child maintenance under the Child Support Act 1991;
(f) the proportion of those children for whom child maintenance has been paid in the previous year;
(g) the type of arrangement—whether voluntary or under the statutory scheme;
(h) where child maintenance has been paid, details of the amount; the frequency of payment; whether paid in full or in part; and whether paid on time.’.
No. 69, in clause 9, page 4, line 32, at end insert—
‘(e) the extent to which the Commission has made progress regarding the collection and payment of arrears.’.
No. 82, in clause 9, page 4, line 32, at end insert—
‘(d) details of any complaints received and how these complaints were handled.’.
No. 13, in clause 9, page 4, line 39, at end insert
‘and must make a motion in the House of Commons in relation to each such report.’.

Andrew Selous: We have reached clause 9. It is an extremely important clause, and it is very good as far as it goes. However, we contend that it does not go nearly far enough, which is why we seek to amend it fairly extensively. There are six amendments in this group—four tabled by the Conservatives and two by the Liberal Democrats—and I find myself in broad agreement with all six.
Amendment No. 10 would have the effect of requiring CMEC’s annual report to the Secretary of State to report not only on the extent of contracting out by CMEC, but on the extent of the agency arrangements covered by clause 7, which we have just debated. We know from that clause that any relevant authority can be used by CMEC in the course of the discharge of its functions. I listened carefully to the debate, but I do not think that the matter came up, so I would be grateful if the Minister gave us an idea of the range of different relevant authorities with which CMEC might make agency arrangements. It would also be useful to know what functions and services are likely to be contracted out or provided by those other relevant authorities. Does the Minister have in mind any limit on the extent of the contracting out or agency provision of services, or is he completely open-minded on that? Are there any areas in which he thinks that contracting out or the use of agencies by other relevant authorities would be particularly appropriate?
Amendment No. 11 would require CMEC to give details of each authorisation to contract out a function, and of how successful each contractor had been in achieving the commission’s objectives. We have no objection in principle to contracting out, as my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean said during the earlier debate, but it would be useful to know which organisations were acting on CMEC’s behalf and how successful they were in achieving their objectives.
There is, of course, a danger that CMEC’s reputation could be damaged if its contractors do not act with high standards. The Minister will want them to have the highest possible standards, so hopefully that will be written into the contract terms and there will be ongoing monitoring and review. It is important that we receive such assurances now given the huge issues of reputation with which the CSA is dealing. We must now state how we want the contractors to behave, if CMEC is to avoid having to deal with damage to its reputation in future.
One Parent Families has said that there is always a risk with contracting out by a Government organisation of the details of the contractor’s performance being hidden behind the veil of commercial confidentiality. Of course, there will always have to be some commercial confidentiality. That is the harsh reality of the business world, but it is important that the public interest in knowing whether public money is being spent wisely is not overlooked. That is why CMEC must be placed under a statutory obligation in the Bill to disclose the performance of its contractors, at least once a year.
It is not as though there is not a lot of history to the issue. Let us consider the excellent report of the Public Accounts Committee, “Child Support Agency: Implementation of the Child Support Reforms”. Somewhat bafflingly, it was published the day after the Bill’s Second Reading. I, for one, found that particularly unhelpful. I wish it had been available before that debate. Page 11 of the report sets out the relevant financial details of a large number of contractors. Such information has come into the public domain in a useful way through the good offices of the Public Accounts Committee, but I would be more reassured if the Bill required such information to be provided annually so that CMEC has to prepare it regularly.
It is also important that the commission justifies its decisions regarding the contracting out of its functions in terms of its objectives under clause 2 rather than only on cost grounds. I hope that I have been helpful to the Committee by explaining the rationale behind amendment No. 11.

Tim Boswell: Will my hon. Friend consider the position in which there is a partial contracting out of a particular function by CMEC, with some activity—perhaps geographically defined—in the private sector, and another part of the country covered by direct arrangements? Is it not particularly important that at some stage, subject to the constraints that he has already expressed, the general public should have a handle on whether what is being run by the private sector is as efficient or superior to the delivery and direct provision of the public sector?

Andrew Selous: As always, I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s wise words. He is absolutely right. It is in everyone’s interest that we have a direct comparison between the public sector and the private sector and between the arrangements in place in different parts of the country. We are discussing the spending of public money for important objectives and we need to have all the information out in the public domain in as transparent and open a way as possible. That is the overall objective of all six amendments to the clause, which is good as far as it goes, but does not go nearly far enough.
Amendment No. 9 would place a requirement on CMEC to provide detail of the nuts and bolts of what it does day to day, rather than the current high level overall strategic direction targets that are listed in subsection (3)(a) to (d). Specifically, it would require CMEC to report on the number of children who are living apart from one or both of their parents and are eligible for child maintenance under the Child Support Act 1991 and the proportion for whom child maintenance was paid in the previous year. One could obviously work out the number of children who have not received child maintenance from that information.
The amendment would also place a requirement on CMEC to disclose the type of maintenance arrangements, whether voluntary or under the statutory scheme, so that we can find out whether the Minister is achieving his objective of encouraging voluntary maintenance agreements, which is widely shared and supported in the Committee.
When child maintenance has been paid, the amendment would require CMEC to provide details of the amount, the frequency of payment, whether it has been paid in full or in part, and whether it has been paid on time. That requirement refers to the total figures for the UK as a whole. We need that level of specific detail as a minimum to be in the public domain once a year, provided by CMEC.
Incidentally, will the Minister assure the Committee that CMEC will produce quarterly performance statistics as the CSA does now? I would be extremely concerned if there were any diminution in the provision of those statistics. I think that the reason why six amendments have been tabled on clause 9 is that the CSA does not have a good reputation for its management of data and reporting systems. Figures are sometimes revised, put in the public domain, revised, brought back and so on. It is incredibly important to get those systems right so that we can judge whether progress has been made and as an aid to the CMEC board. All the proposed additional requirements in subsection (3) would assist the board in achieving its objectives. The public discussion and interest that would arise from the provision of that information to the public domain would be entirely healthy for achieving the overall objectives.
One Parent Families had more to say on the clause. It referred to the fact that clause 2 shows that the primary objective is to maximise the number of children who live apart from one or both parents for whom effective maintenance arrangements are in place. It made the point that if the objective is to drive the performance of the CMEC board in a meaningful way, it will need to have regular data at its disposal to measure how successful its interventions have been at increasing the number of children for whom child maintenance is being paid.
It is worth reflecting on the current situation in terms of data that is put into the public domain. Child maintenance receipt figures come mainly from large annual surveys, such as the families and children’s study and the family resources survey, which tend to be at least a year and a half out of date when they are published. Although they are informative, such surveys will only identify on a retrospective basis whether the commission’s activities have worked. CMEC needs the information on a real-time basis to find out whether a greater proportion of children living in separated families are receiving child maintenance as a result of its work. The intention of all the amendments is to help CMEC to meet its overall objectives.
Amendment No. 69 relates to debt, on which we had an extensive debate in a our sitting on 19 July, recorded at columns 113-118 of the Official Report. The amendment is a slightly briefer version of amendment No. 12. As noted in column 113, you agreed that we could press it to a Division at the end of the debate on the amendments to clause 9, Mr. Chope. I restate my wish to do so, because debt is such an important concern.
Amendment No. 69 highlights the importance of debt. It is worth reflecting that only a limited amount of information about the agency’s debts and its success in recovering them finds its way into the public domain. Each year, the Comptroller and Auditor General reports on the agency’s client account and the total amount of debt owed, which is broken down into “collectable”, “possibly collectable” and “probably collectable” sums, as well as into sums under the old and new schemes, and sums owed as a result of interim maintenance assessments and full maintenance assessments. I wonder whether, in future, there will be three columns in which the Comptroller and Auditor General can record sums relating to old, new and CMEC schemes. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that in his response. The information that the Comptroller and Auditor General puts in the public domain is useful, but is of limited help in understanding the agency’s performance and the strategy behind it, which is why I sympathise with amendment No. 69.
We know that the agency has analysed its debt book and knows the proportion of non-resident parents owing different amounts of debt. Those figures are broken down into bands, such as those owing less than £1,000 or those owing more than £50,000. In passing, I must say that it is pretty shocking that there are some parents with care, mainly mothers, who are owed more than £50,000 as a result of the failings of the agency. I know that the Minister entirely shares that sentiment.
Some work has been contracted out to private debt collectors. The annual report that will be made under the clause will be a useful place in which to report the commission’s strategy for pursuing debtors in different categories and the usefulness for that purpose of private debt collectors, compared with the commission’s staff. That information is not shared currently, but it should be. In the spirit of transparency, and given that the Minister has talked about a clean break and a new start, such provisions should be included in the Bill. I therefore hope that hon. Members will support amendment No. 69 and will not resist amendment No. 12.
The Bill will give CMEC considerably more powers than the agency has to collect child support debts. That is right, because we know from the National Audit Office that, in June last year, the CSA’s enforcement teams were dealing with only around 8 per cent. of cases with arrears. The Minister properly referred to the operational improvement plan, and we all wish it the greatest success. It promises to quadruple the number of staff devoted to debt collection and enforcement by March 2009, and is pledging to collect an extra £213.8 million of historic debt. It is appropriate to require that CMEC reports on the success of those operational improvement plan measures, as well as on its plans to increase its debt recovery targets, in light of the greater powers that it will have as a result of the Bill. Overall, the greatest standards of accountability should be set by the commission in reporting on the recovery of money owed to parents with care for children, and in our view the obligations on the commission should be made crystal clear.
Amendment No. 82 would add to clause 9(3) the words:
“details of any complaints received and how these complaints were handled”.
That would be a useful and important amendment—I should have tabled it myself. Again, I shall refer to the excellent report by the PAC, which is one of the most powerful and influential Committees in this House—it normally talks a good deal of sense—and about which we often hear a great deal in the media. Paragraph 11 on page 6 of that report, which was published on 5 July 2007, states:
“55,000 complaints were made to the Agency in 2005-06”.
The number of complaints received will be a key indicator of public confidence in the success of CMEC, which is why I believe that the Bill should require the publication of those figures.
Amendment No. 13 is important because it would require the Secretary of State to
“make a motion in the House of Commons in relation to each...report”
That would ensure that each annual CMEC report to the Secretary of State would be debated in the Chamber by all Members of Parliament. Given the importance of the role that CMEC will perform and the impact that its success or failure will have on the lives of so many children and families, I do not think that the amendment is too much to ask. Hon. Members should not have to apply by ballot for Adjournment debates on CMEC which would be shuffled off to Westminster Hall. An annual debate in the Chamber, required by statute, on a Thursday afternoon, or whenever it can be put into the legislative programme, will help to maintain MPs’ interest in, and knowledge of, these very important child-support matters. I commend amendment No. 13 to the Committee, therefore, and look forward to its support on as many of the amendments as possible.

Paul Rowen: I congratulate the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire on his remarks. There is a great deal of agreement on the six amendments before us, partly because there is very little detailed information in the Bill about how CMEC will operate, which is why clause 9 is so important. The draft regulations have not been published. However, from our own case loads and the history of the CSA, we all know of the huge concerns about the way in which the CSA operated and, therefore, share a desire to ensure that the new body is set up and run properly. One of the ways in which Parliament and hon. Members can do that is through the use of an annual report.

Christopher Chope: Order. The Committee is adjourned until 4 o’clock this afternoon, when David Taylor will be in the Chair. I look forward to seeing hon. Members again in October.

It being One o’clock, The Chairmanadjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned till this day at Four o’clock.